On his maiden visit to India as the CEO of The Body Shop, David Boynton opens his heart about the challenges faced by the ethical beauty brand in getting back its mojo since 2017, on his bullishness on the Indian market and why brands must have an emotional connect
“The mother had died, but then the stepfather had sold us…” David Boynton poignantly sums up his emotion when he took over as the chief executive officer of The Body Shop in December 2017. It had been a decade since the iconic British cosmetic retailer was sold to French giant L’Oréal in 2006. Anita Roddick, who founded the brand in Brighton in 1976, died a year later in 2007, and after a decade, L’Oréal sold the brand to Brazilian ethical beauty retailer Natura. “We'd kind of become an orphan,” he recounts. In 2017, he underlines, the ‘mother’ wasn't there to tell what to do. Though for a good 10 years, the brand had a ‘caring stepfather’, it was not enough. “The stepfather wanted us to do well, but his other children were very different from us,” he adds.
Back in 2006, the sell-off shocked ethically-conscious customers globally. The Body Shop’s new parent, they argued, had a dramatically contrasting business DNA as compared to the British brand known for making ethical products, practising fierce social activism and championing environmentally-friendly practices. The reputational hit and the consumer backlash led to a steady erosion in sales and profits over the next decade. “Honestly, it broke my heart to see what had been going on in the previous 10 years,” says Boynton, who had a 10-year stint at beauty firm L’Occitane, and a brief stint at shirtmaker Charles Tyrwhitt before taking on the mantle of the CEO of The Body Shop. “It was kind of the dream job for me,” he says in a free-wheeling interview with Forbes India.